Abstract
The re-emergence of episodic faecal contamination of Parlee and Murray Corner beaches, on the Northumberland Strait of New Brunswick, Canada, in 2017, raised renewed community concerns on the health, environmental and tourism sustainability of these community resources, and led to creation of an Integrated Watershed Management Plan for the Shediac Bay Watershed (October 2021). In response we have to date compiled, curated and made accessible 205,772 microbial water quality data records spanning over 80 years from Southeastern New Brunswick and the Northumberland Strait. This dataset derives in large part from Shellfish Surveys completed by Environment and Climate Change Canada, along with data generated by multiple government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations and citizen science sources. Records derived from these multiple sources are now deposited in the Gordon Foundation’s DataStream (https://atlanticdatastream.ca), an open access common platform for sharing structured information on fresh and marine water health, delivered on a pan-Canadian scale, in collaboration with regional monitoring networks. We herein outline our data assembly, curation and deposition, along with preliminary analyses of contamination patterns at three representative sites on the Northumberland Strait coast of New Brunswick. Our results suggest that cumulative rainfall over 48 h is useful in predicting contamination risk at the developed Parlee Beach and thus demonstrate how open data can be used to inform policy and management decisions.1 Department of Biology, Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, Canada, E4L1G7
✉ Correspondence: Douglas A. Campbell <dcampbel@mta.ca>
Preserving high water quality in the Northumberland Strait is crucial for the well-being of its marine ecosystems and the shellfish harvesting and tourism industries which support the local economy. Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Faecal Coliform found in water are used as indicators of the possible presence of other pathogenic microorganisms of faecal origin. As such, they are used to monitor, assess and predict microbial water quality in the environment, both for food harvesting [1] and for recreational activities [2].
Faecal contamination can enter water bodies as a result of heavy rainfall and stream discharge, while in situ bacterial growth is positively associated with increased air and water temperatures [3–5]. Detections of repeated faecal contaminations at New Brunswick’s Parlee Beach (46.239706°, -64.509637°) raised community concerns in 2016-2017, leading to an Integrated Watershed Management Plan for the Shediac Bay Watershed, on the Northumberland Strait [6].
In response we assembled microbial water quality data records for the Northumberland Strait, largely from many years of Shellfish Surveys completed by Environment and Climate Change Canada [7], along with data records from provincial and municipal government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations and citizen science sources. These data on faecal contamination of coastal and estuarine waters are now deposited in the DataStream open access database [8], sponsored by the Gordon Foundation. We herein outline our data assembly, curation and deposition, along with preliminary analyses of contamination patterns at three representative sites on the Northumberland Strait coast of New Brunswick, to demonstrate how open data can be used to inform policy and management decisions.
Demonstrate the utility of open access water quality records to support analyses of patterns of microbial contamination, specifically bacterial counts, at three diverse locations along the Northumberland Strait (Figure 1), over years, seasons, and in response to weather.